Former Soccer Star Races Her Way to 2:31 Marathon and Spot at Trials

For most of her life, Julia Kohnen’s running was confined to a basketball court or soccer field. She played both sports throughout high school in Florissant, Missouri, then earned a soccer scholarship to play at the University of Southern Indiana. It wasn’t until her senior year of college in 2014 that someone mentioned that she might want to try running instead.

“The cross country coach at Southern Indiana saw me running one day and asked if I’d ever consider doing cross country,” Kohnen, now 27, told Runner’s World. “I was planning to stay another year to get my MBA degree, so when I found out I could use a fifth year of eligibility for another sport, I decided to give running a shot.”

It was a shot worth taking. From 2014 to 2015, Kohnen became a four-time DII All-American in cross country and track at Southern Indiana, clocking times of 16:41.81 for 5K and 34:45.08 for 10K.

“I played soccer for four years and was never All-American,” she said. “Then I ran for one year and was. I was a little bummed that I hadn’t started sooner.”

Julia Kohnen joined the Big River Racing team in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2016, and has since clocked times of 1:13:47 for half marathon and 2:31:29 for marathon.

Courtesy of Julia Kohnen

Though she started running later than some of her competition, Kohnen, who lives and trains in St. Louis, Missouri, has made up for lost time over the last five years. In 2017, she finished the Chicago Marathon—her second 26.2-miler ever—in 2:39:11, qualifying for the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials. And this month, she won the Twin Cities Marathon in a personal best time of 2:31:29, which makes her the 24th-fastest woman heading into the Trials next February.

While Kohnen is undoubtedly a naturally talented runner—and a strong one, thanks to muscles that were trained to sprint down fields and endure long games—making the jump from team sports to running, and then to marathoning, was no small feat. Add the fact that she is unsponsored and works two jobs—full-time as a field technology advocate for Panera Bread and part-time for the St. Louis Cardinals—it’s a wonder that she can fit marathon training and racing into her week, let alone have the drive and grit to top leaderboards.

Marrying Work Life with Marathon Life

After graduating with an MBA degree from Southern Indiana in 2015, Kohnen was approached by a few sponsors about running professionally, but she decided instead to accept her position at Panera Bread’s headquarters in St. Louis.

“I wanted a full-time job, because I knew I’d make no money if I just ran,” she said. “I could always run on my own.”

After completing a few half marathons in 2015, she registered for her first 26.2-mile race, Missouri’s MO’ Cowbell Marathon in October 2016. To prepare for her debut, she increased her mileage from her college average of 60 to 70 miles per week to 80 miles per week, and added in longer, marathon-specific workouts and tempos. On race day, she won the marathon in 2:47:47.

“I finished and thought, ‘I’m already done?’ I felt like I could have kept going,” she said. “The pace felt conservative. After that, my coach told me I had the potential to qualify for Trials.”

Kohnen squeezes in most of her training miles before work, between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m., and meets with her teammates for a Saturday morning workout and Sunday long run.

Courtesy of Julia Kohnen

Training with the Big River Racing team in St. Louis, Kohnen picked Chicago 2017 for her OTQ attempt. With guidance from her coach, she mapped out a plan to get into sub-2:45 marathon shape with carefully calculated races and 100-mile training weeks—including a medium-long run on Wednesday, workout on Saturday, and long run on Sunday.

On a typical day, Kohnen woke up at 5 a.m., met her teammates for a run or workout from 5:30 to 7:30 a.m., then left for work at 8 a.m. Two days per week, she did a second run at lunch or after she got off work at 5:30 p.m.

“I eat a lot, so I have to prep meals ahead of time,” she said. “On some days, I doubled at lunch, so I had to pack breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner, because I wouldn’t be home until late at night. Then I went to sleep and started over the next day.”

Dropping Down to 2:31

After busting through the 2:40 barrier in Chicago, Kohnen weathered the rainy and cold 2018 Boston Marathon, then began laying a foundation for her breakthrough year in 2019.

Over the last year, Kohnen increased her mileage to between 100 and 110 miles per week, and practiced fueling with gels and fluids during her long runs and workouts. In January, she ran a huge half marathon PR of 1:13:47 in Houston, Texas. Her time goal for Twin Cities was 2:35, which would make her a Trials ‘A’ standard qualifier (sub-2:37).

“A few weeks before the race, we did a 15-mile tempo at goal marathon pace,” Kohnen said. “I started at 5:55 pace, then dropped down to 5:45 pace halfway through. After that, I knew I could hold 5:50 pace for the race.”

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Kohnen lucked out with perfectly crisp race day on October 6. “I felt like it was my payback for surviving Boston in 2018,” she said. Running with her coach, she split 1:16 at the half marathon mark feeling strong and relaxed. She maintained 5:45 pace over the hills in the latter part of the race, passing women as she went, then broke the tape in an eight-minute personal best time.

Now with a shiny new PR in her pocket, Kohnen is rethinking her goals for 2020.

“Before, I was just really excited to be at Trials with all those talented girls,” Kohnen said. “But now that I’ve run that time and felt good doing it, I want to shoot for finishing in the top 20. Twin Cities made me even more excited to start training for Trials.”

Hailey MiddlebrookDigital EditorHailey first got hooked on running news as an intern with Running Times, and now she reports on elite runners and cyclists, feel-good stories, and training pieces for Runner's World and Bicycling magazines.

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